* Page 14 THE BATTALIuin THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 1979 Aggies open against Lamar Ladies begin state tournament play By BETH YOUNG Battalion Reporter , The Texas A&M Aggie Ladies basketball team set a goal for itself at the beginning of the 1978-79 season. That goal, according to Coach Wanda Bender, was to make it to the regional basketball tournament and be one of the top four women’s basketball teams in Texas. The Aggie Ladies will have the chance to achieve their goal this weekend at the TAIAW State Tour- GET A BETTER THAN FLORIDA TAN! SKI WINTER PARK COLORADO SPRING BREAK only 139 00 * • 6 Days/5 nights at Winter Park Lodge II Condominiums • Complete kitchens and fireplaces in all units • 3 day lift pass included • 3 days ski rental included • discounts on extra lifts and ski rental FOR RESERVATIONS AND INFO CALL CHRIS BARTON 693-2255 WILLIE WOOD 779-0450 (eve.) OR BILL MITCHELL 779-0450 ^^Package^vatlable^28^^ nament in Nacogdoches at Stephen F. Austin State University. “Teams were selected to play in this tournament on the basis of their win-loss record,” Bender said, “and a committee seeded the teams on what they feel like their records jus tified.” “It will be a 16-team, double elimination tournament,“Bender said. “Out of the 16 teams, half of them are seeded according to their season’s record and the other eight teams are placed by a draw.’ The Aggie Ladies, who are 24-14, were not among the seeded teams and Bender said that they did not draw well. “We needed to be in the upper bracket, bottom half,” she said, “be cause there we would only have had to defeat one difficult opponent to be guaranteed fifth place and only have to play four games. Where we are, we’ll have to face four difficult opponents and play five ball games.” The University of Texas is seeded No. 1 in the tournament but Texas A&M will not play the Longhorns because they’re in a different brac ket. However, A&M does have fifth ranked North Texas State Univer sity and third ranked Wayland in its bracket as well as second ranked Stephen F. Austin and seventh ranked Lamar, which A&M will play in the first round today at 11 a. m. “The hardest team we’ll face after we beat Lamar is SFA,” Bender commented. Bender said she feels it will be hard for the team to achieve its goal of being No. 4 in the state because of the way A&M is placed in the tournament. “We ll have to beat SFA to do it,” she said. “Realistically, we could achieve our ultimate goal and gain a berth in regionals.” This is Bender’s second year to take the Aggie Ladies to the state tournament. Last year the Ags came out tied for seventh place. “I feel like if we’re playing good ball up to our capabilities like the last two games, we’ll come out fifth out of 16,’ Bender said. “That would give us a berth in the regionals tournament which is at Oral Roberts University in Tulsa, Ok., March 8-10.” Bender said that she has been working the team on man-for-man defense, individual shooting, break ing a press and improving its own press. “I thind we maybe could have worked on man-for-man earlier in the season,” she said, “and played more man-for-man as well.” Bender said that the Aggie Ladies lost a lot of games that they should have won this season due to injuries and sickness. “I feel that on any given night we should be 34-4,” she said. “Only two teams are capable of beating us anywhere on any night and they are the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Nevada-Las Vegas.” Bender described this weekend’s tournament as the most grueling test of the season. “We have to play five hard ball games in three days if we make it to the finals,” she said. “The girls are ready. That will be our advantage. The players are up at their peak and we should go into this tournament on a high note.” The Aggie Ladies are ready. Junior guard Von Bunn said that she is looking forward to the tour nament. “We’ve played good in our last two games and we re not going to let Lamar beat us,” she said. “I think we re going to surprise everybody.” Senior Margaret Byrne also feels that the Aggies will do well. “I’m really looking forward to it,” Byrne said. “We’ve been playing good ball lately.” Freshman Kelley Sullivan said, “It’s going to be tough because we have to play a lot of games but our enthusiasm is good. I think we can get into the top five.” Bender said the starters for the first game will be Bunn, Byrne, Sul livan, Susan Kimbro and Peggy Pope. “I always substitute freely,” the Aggie coach said, “but not as freely in this touranment.” She said that Lisa Hughes, Cindy Gough and Julia Crawford will defi nitely see a lot of action. The Aggie Ladies will be playing without their third leading scorer, Pat Werner, who is out due to foot surgery last week. Bender said that the Aggies plan to go to Nacogdoches and play the best basketball they’ve played all year. “I will expect the maximum ulti mate effort they’re able to give in five games," Bender said. “If I get that effort out of these Aggie Ladies, we will achieve our goal. ” Mustangs sign top prospects Look Into Your Future Thousands of career opportunities are listed daily in the nation’s largest CLASSIFIED ad section. Keep abreast of the changing job market with The Houston Chronicle, Texas’ largest newspaper. 1/2 price for students, faculty and staff. United Press International Southern Methodist University rounded up one of the top recruiting classes in the nation Wednesday and the Mustangs’ overjoyed coach, Ron Meyer, said his club had become a contender for the 1979 Southwest Conference championship. SMU, which pulled off the re cruiting coup of the year last week in signing the state’s top two pros pects and a dozen more players of high regard, re-signed every one of TAMU AQUATIAfIS PRESENTS ^ OSCARS 3 Entire semester for $5.90 (Feb. 19-May 11). Call 693-2323 or 846-0763 to start HOME or DORM DELIVERY immediately. Houston Chronicle News you can use. A SYNCRONIZE WATER SHOW FEATURING THEME SONGS FROM OSCAR WINNING FILMS FEBRUARY 24. 26.6 27 8:00 PM DOWNS NATATORIUM TNDOOR POOL’ ADULTS 6 STUDENTS 5100 CHILDREN UNDER 12 75< TICKETS AVAILABLE AT DOOR them to a national letter of intent Wednesday. The Mustangs even managed to outfight Oklahoma for the services of one of the state’s top linemen, Scott Gibson of Duncanville, who had previously signed with the Sooners. Meyer personally signed the cor nerstones of the recruiting crop — running backs Eric Dickerson of Sealy and Craig James of Houston. Dickerson, perhaps the most widely recruited ball carrier in the country, signed with Meyer at 8:15 a.m. Wednesday and two hours later James signed on with the Mus tangs. “We had our plow in some pretty hard ground when we first came here,” said Meyer. “But because of some tremendous dedication and some pieces falling together we re just making progress in leaps and bounds. “This group really gives us good credibility with people. We’re going to be young, but we will be uninhi bited. “This group is going to get us into position to be able to mount a bonafide challenge for the confer ence title this year. “This is a heck of a day as a coach ing staff for us and as a university.” The work done by Meyer and his SO YOU WANT TO BE A CASINO GIRI Well, you’d better trot up to the RHA office (216 MSC) by 5:00 p.m. Friday and turn in your application so you will be eligible for the drawing Monday, February 26. All females may enter — the only requirement being a big smile and of course, no hot date on Friday, April 20 — the night of CASINO 79!! So don’t delay girls — do something out of the ordinary — something alot of fun — apply to be involved with CASINO 79 today (or at least by Friday, February 23.) band of assistants overshadowed the efforts of the rest of the Southwest Conference schools, although every team in the league signed athletes off the various blue chip lists. Texas A&M and Texas Tech, however, lost players they had signed to SWC scholarship agree ments last week. Running back Royce Coleman, who had signed with the Red Raiders, decided on Oklahoma instead and defensive back Donnie Fisher, highly re cruited out of Port Arthur Lincoln, jilted Texas A&M in favor of UCLA. The rest of the state’s leading high school players backed up their commitments by signing national scholarship agreements Wednes day. Quarterback Rick Mdvor of Fort Stockton, tight end Dewey Turner of Lubbock Estacado and wide re ceiver Herkie Walls of Garland — the top players signed by Texas — stayed in the Longhorns fold. Tech was able to keep quarter back Mark James of Gregory- Portland and lineman Matt Harlien of Corpus Christi King. Texas A&M, which had hoped to sign Dickerson last week, counted wide receiver Eference Murphy of Texarkana as its leading prospect. Arkansas fought off Notre Dame for the services of lineman Billy Ray Smith of Plano and Baylor came up with an outstanding quarterbacking duo of Rick Money of Dallas and Vic Vines of Odessa Permina. TCU also had perhaps its best re cruiting crop in a decade, highligh ted by the signing of quarterback Reuben Jones from Tulsa. Jones had been heavily recruited by Okla homa, but the Sooners told him they wanted him as a running back. Jones, a quick-footed option quar terback who also threw for 1,400 yards last year, wanted a chance to be a signal caller in college. Both Arkansas and TCU recruiters said they would give him the opportu nity to play quarterback and after visiting Fayetteville last week Jones signed with TCU Wednesday. The Horned Frogs recruited coast to coast, signing players from California, Georgia and Pennsyl vania. Oklahoma’s annual invasion into Texas was limited to only a few gains this year. Dickerson was the Soon ers’ chief target and they lost Gibson to SMU. In addition to the gains they made last week, SMU beefed up its for ward wall by signing Brian O’Meara, a 6-6, 250-pound lineman from Cleveland. Texas A&M signees Charlie Lowe, wr, 6-3, 190, Beaumont Forest Park; Columbus Harris, rb, 5-11, 190, Bryan; Mack Moore, lineman, 6-4, 245, Farraday, La. (San Francisco City College); David Scott, wr, 6-0, 180, wr, Kilgore JC; Van Barnett, rb, 6-2, 185, West Orange Jeff Farrar, rb, 6-1, 190, Grapevine; Kenny Ingram, lb, 6-2, 205, Cor pus Christi Carroll; Raymond Jackson, line man, 6-5, 255, Wharton; Don Jones, lineman, 6-3, 190, Nacogdoches, Buzzy Lane, rb, 5-11, 190, For Worth Wyatt; Mark McQueen, qb, 6-0, 185, Temple; Charles Milstead, db, 5-11, 175, Houston Lee; Eference Murphy, wr, 5-10, 173, Texarkana; Bobby Strogen, lb, 6-2, 230, Haughton, La.; Elvis Walker, rb, 5-9, 18, Temple; Chuck Williams, lineman, 64, 245, Gregory-Portland; Will Wright, lineman, 6-2, 218, Dallas Roosevelt. RAP ON YOUR ROOMMATE!! Enter “The Roommate Game” to be played at the All Night Fair — Feb. 23 SIGN UP NOW IN RM. 216 MSC OR Call 845-1515 Game sponsored by SVS (Student Volunteer Services) EL Chico- RESTAURANT 3109 Texas Avenue Presents 79er DINER DAYS Bryan, Texas 77801 79